The international bestseller, “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth, celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013. I’ve just re-read it, and it’s just as good as I remembered. One of the longest novels ever published in one volume — at 1,474 pages in paperback — it’s an epic tale set in India a few years after Independence, with lyrical writing and vibrant characters.

Despite its massive length, it’s got an enormous and dedicated fan club. I’m not the only person to love it so much that I read it again — some fans read it twice when it first came out in 1993, and re-read it again recently. I just re-read it along with my friend Marjorie, who texted me: “I’m coming into the home stretch now (last 350 pages) and slowing down because I don’t want it to end.” Then, when she finished: “Now whatever I read for awhile will pale in comparison.”

A Suitable Boy starts with a mother who is trying to find a suitable husband for her daughter, Lata, kicking off with this simple sentence: “You too will marry a boy I choose,” said Mrs. Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.

One of my favorite segments of our Strange Than Fiction Book Club meetings is “Bedside Table,” when we discover what has been added to our members’ stacks of reading material.

Here are a few of the bedside books mentioned at our most recent meeting:

“Sutton,” by J.R. Moehringer: The former Rocky Mountain News reporter and Denver resident took on bank robber Willie Sutton as the subject of his historic fiction novel. Read the review by Claire Martin in The Denver Post.

“Telegraph Avenue,” by Michael Chabon: The New York Times said Chabon’s novel is “an amazingly rich, emotionally detailed story” about two Oakland, Calif., families, one black and one white. Read the review in The Denver Post.

“Silver Star,” by Jeanette Walls: We’ve all read “Glass Castles” (some of us many times over) and “Half Broke Horses” and were entranced. Walls’ latest is due out in June, but one of our book club members got her hands on an advanced copy. Can’t wait to hear her opinion!Read more…

Beverly Donofrio is coming to Tattered Cover on March 19, which is great news. I’d loved her second memoir “Looking for Mary,” which told how Donofrio — a lapsed Catholic in her 40s — began collecting Virgin Mary kitsch at yard sales. Her rekindled love for Mary led her to uproot her life with a spontaneous move toMexico, where the Virgin is celebrated on a daily basis, interwoven into the tiny details of everyday life.

Her new memoir, “Astonished,” picks up where the last one left off, detailing the next step in her spiritual seeking. It begins in Mexico, where she’d built herself a house in the old colonial town of San Miguel de Allende. In her 50s, she lived with style and passion: she took salsa lessons, painted icons, went to art openings, took yoga classes. Then one night, just as she is about to embark on a pilgrimage to monasteries, she is raped.